Facebook Connect, the single sign-on tool Facebook uses to allow its accounts to serve as logins to other online services, has experienced a glitch that froze users out of many popular websites and sent them to an error message.
The incident took place in the very early hours of 8 February, GMT, and saw Facebook Connect users …

Jan 8?

Re: Jan 8?

Why is that a problem ?

Facebook could go down for 3 months and honestly I think it would be a good thing. People might actually interact on a normal level.

Define Normal: The capacity to talk and dialogue usings ones mental and vocal capacities whilst standing fae to face with someone else. The removal of the requirement to dictate to world et al every living moment of the day. The termination of the publicaiton of ones biography in real time to an audience that simply doesn't really care......

...FB login to access other sites?

Yup, unfortunately.

I have had a run-in with Media24 some time ago, as the only means of posting or reading comments on their articles is to log on with your FB account. I was told it is a security feature, as an e-mail account is no proof of identity. They never answered me (apart from stating that it was policy) when I pointed out that I could use exactly the same "insecure" (GMail) address to create an FB account and then post comments.

I received a number of these messages this morning before the issue was resolved some time later:

FB logon for SECURITY reasons ?

For crying out loud, please, let's call it what it is, shall we ? Laziness. That's all it is.

Does Facebook require proof of identity to create an account ? No. Does it require proof of residence ? No. Creating an account with FB just requires an email address, that's all. So the "security" excuse goes flying out the window real fast, accompanied by my contempt for such a lame excuse. This is pure CYA/pass-the-buck marketspeak, perfectly befitting the company name..

You want to rely on some other entity for reasons of security, you create an infrastructure with banks. To open a bank account you have to prove you're you and prove where you live, ergo the bank bloody well knows you're you. From that point, if the bank would certify your online identity, there could be no doubt that you are indeed you.

Re: FB logon for SECURITY reasons ?

It also affected any site that included ANY social plugin from Facebook - eg:

"Other pages people liked" or the box you stick on your page to invite people to become a fan of your page.

None of my sites use Facebook for logging in - but they were all affected because they either have the box to become a fan of the page on facebook or the box that shows what other pages on the site people like.